Many companies and other organizations operate computer networks that interconnect numerous computing systems to support their operations, such as with the computing systems being co-located (e.g., as part of a local network) or instead located in multiple distinct geographical locations (e.g., connected via one or more private or public intermediate networks). For example, data centers housing significant numbers of interconnected computing systems have become commonplace, such as private data centers that are operated by and on behalf of a single organization, and public data centers that are operated by entities as businesses to provide computing resources to customers or clients. Some public data center operators provide network access, power, and secure installation facilities for hardware owned by various clients, while other public data center operators provide “full service” facilities that also include hardware resources made available for use by their clients. However, as the scale and scope of typical data centers has increased, the tasks of provisioning, administering, and managing the physical computing resources have become increasingly complicated.
Managers and other authority figures within companies and other organizations often send messages to their members that include instructions to perform tasks using emails or text messaging. In addition, requests for approval to perform tasks or access resources are often sent from employees or managers to other employees, managers and/or other authority figures using emails or text messaging. However, once the emails or text messages are sent, the sender does not have any control over them, nor any mechanism for determining whether or not the instructions were followed (or for determining the state of pending approval requests). In some cases, if there are multiple acceptable actions that an organization member can take in response to such a message, the sender might like to know which of these actions, if any were taken. In some cases, if an email or text message that includes instructions to perform a task (or respond to an approval request) is sent to multiple people (e.g., all of the members of a department or project team), the sender will typically not have any control over, or knowledge of, which, if any, of the recipients actually read the email or text message and/or perform the task (or respond to the approval request). Therefore, in an organization in which many such emails or text messages are exchanged between the members of the organization, keeping track of what has or has not been done (much less by whom) can be difficult and error-prone. In addition, this approach can easily lead to an important task going unperformed (or an important approval request being ignored) while each member of the organization that received the message assumes that another member will perform the task (or respond to the approval request).
While embodiments are described herein by way of example for several embodiments and illustrative drawings, those skilled in the art will recognize that embodiments are not limited to the embodiments or drawings described. It should be understood, that the drawings and detailed description thereto are not intended to limit embodiments to the particular form disclosed, but on the contrary, the intention is to cover all modifications, equivalents and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope as defined by the appended claims. The headings used herein are for organizational purposes only and are not meant to be used to limit the scope of the description or the claims. As used throughout this application, the word “may” is used in a permissive sense (i.e., meaning having the potential to), rather than the mandatory sense (i.e., meaning must). Similarly, the words “include”, “including”, and “includes” mean including, but not limited to.